2016 – Back on the road again

We quite like cats. As some will know we even used to have a ship's cat before we decided to drop him back in Devon. However, even we have our limits.

Aguadulce turned out to be a pretty good choice as a winter stop. We pitched up there in Early December after rejecting Almerimar as being sad and soul-less. It has to be said that there's not a lot to Aguadulce. Scenic it's not, but it does feel a little more like a real town than a purpose built holiday/retirement/golf complex which is what Almerimar clearly is. The staff in the marina office, principally Jessica, are super efficient and helpful and the facilities work and are clean. There isn't a huge number of live-aboards there, but our near neighbours on one side Derek and Juanita and on the other Pablo and Miriam were lovely.

Most of this coast is backed by mountains which are dry and brown and mostly devoid of vegetation apart from olives and scrub. The coastal strip however sports a lush crop of polytunnels. There must be hundreds of thousands of acres of them, growing everything from carrots and tomatoes to papaya, avocado and mango. In some places there's a sea of shining plastic as far as you can see, which isn't pretty but the upside of this we discovered in the Thursday market in Roquetas de Mar, a couple of Km down the coast from us, where the huge range of fruit and veg must be amongst the cheapest in Europe. Is there such a thing as vitamin C poisoning? If so we must be nearing the limit.

So the only real downside was the cats.

We never counted them, but at a guess there were around 40 in our little herd. I suppose even that wouldn't have been too bad except for the inevitable by product of cats..... most of which, despite my hosing them down whenever possible, they seemed to deposit in the planting strip just in front of us. The smell was powerful.

There was a seemingly endless stream of folks who would stroll down the quayside and strew catfood around for them, out of pity for the poor starving beasts, each presumably imagining they were the only ones doing so. Hence all the cats did was to lounge around waiting for the next food delivery and....make more cats.

Lucia commenced a campaign of terror against the feeders, to not feed them or, if they really had to, then at least not to do it near us. Predictably, it had little effect and culminated in the worst offender threatening her with his stick. Thankfully, shortly before our departure they started disappearing. Nothing to do with me, though I can't in all honesty say I wasn't tempted.

The winter weather in Almeria isn't dissimilar to Summer on the south coast of England, but with less rain, so it wouldn't have difficult to carry on cruising throughout. However we had been ready to stop for a rest when we did, after a longish season starting from our crossing from Holland in April. But after 3 months being stationary, including a month in Italy with family and ski-ing, it felt like time to start moving again.

So on 2rd March we said our goodbyes and headed out across the bay.

A series of (generally) picturesque rolly anchorages took us to Cartagena, where we explored for a few days waiting for weather and socialising. It had felt like we were the only ones out sailing but there were two already there from Gibraltar. The irrepressible Andrew and Steph on Carousel, and the lovely but apparently slightly accident prone ? And ?

We curiously also met Nick and Jen and their two boys from No Worries. I should really stop being surprised at the coincidences we come across.... as they seem to happen so regularly, but I just can't quite manage it. Before leaving Aguadulce, I had flown back to the UK for my daughter Lauren's wedding to Matt. At the wedding I had chatted to amongst others Simon, Matt's brother in law. It turns out that Simon is Nick's oldest friend and Godfather to one of the boys. Now, I still can't quite figure whether this type of coincidence is anything really very improbable... but what intrigues me more is that we happened upon the connection quite by chance after chatting for an hour or so. How many more of these kinds of connections are there but missed?

We motored most of the 25miles around the corner from Cartagena to Mar Menor, managing to dump about 200litres of fresh water from our recently topped up tanks into the bilge via the lazarette locker where a plumbing joint popped. Suffice to say we were not a happy crew when we arrived at dusk to find we had just missed the bridge opening and the unfinished marina outside looked nothing like expected... However we nosed our way into what was basically a huge sheet piling cofferdam and dropped the anchor. At least the following day was dry and calm, as we spent most of it hauling wet gear out of the lazarette and drying it off on deck.

Shelter for anchoring on this coast is a little sparse and we decided that the queen of Spanish package holiday towns, Benidorm was the best bet next as it has a little headland to tuck under. The skyline was visible from 15 miles away and was really quite spectacular as we approached at dusk. This was more than could be said for the shelter provided. The beach had all kinds of obstacles floating around for some distance off, and this severely limited the space to tuck in. Another bouncy night ensued.

Moraira, a further 20 miles up the coast was much more to our taste and we pumped up the dinghy for the first time this season and waited for a good weather window to cross to Ibiza.

Gibraltar

The straight of Gibraltar certainly has a sense of drama.  The impressively high mountains on both the European and African sides make for spectacular scenery but also make for a well known wind acceleration effect.  The wind almost always blows due east (Levanter) or due west (Poniente) and is often pretty stiff.  Tarifa, at the western entrance to the straight, is not the wind surf capital of Europe for nothing.

 It is the meeting of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean of course, as well as the almost meeting of the continents.  The flow of shipping in and out is constant and the water swirls and eddies Eastwards, replacing all the evaporation from the oversized bathtub that is the Mediterranean Sea.

Unusually, a Levanter had been blowing uninterrupted for several weeks, so it was at the first break in this that we headed out from Cadiz, where we'd sat out our fourth 40knot gale of the summer, and motored into the mouth of the Mediterranean with no wind whatsoever.

I feel bound to say that the town of Gibraltar is somewhat less impressive than its suroundings.  No offence to Gibraltarians but it really is an odd place.  We had anchored just over the border in the shabby and run down Spanish town of La Linea, so crossed the land border into the province which bizarrely involves crossing the airport runway.  Immediately on crossing, there is an immediate sense of slightly frenzied bustle and rush.  For me, the place also seems to be full of  the worst kind of graceless Britishness.  We bought lunch from a bakery which was overpriced and stodgy and eventually retreated gratefully to Sula.

On the positive side, this was a chance to meet up with friends Nick and Karen and their boys on Yacht Pilgrim.  Not seen since Baiona, it was great to catch up on their adventures.  

Kindness of Strangers

One of the aspects of how different our experience of Portugal has been this time around is the friendliness of the local fishermen. Now, professional fishermen are generally a fairly hard bitten bunch and it seems to me that they have every right to be a bit disdainful of us amateurs swanning about getting in their way. However, in Spain and Portugal while we have had the odd instance of grumpiness, the reverse of this attitude is commonplace.

Such it was when we returned to our dinghy in Olhao on the Algarve, to find the gate down to the pontoon locked. Fortunately, well - fairly fortunately, a local fisherman was returning to his boat after a clearly protracted liquid lunch. He saw we had no key, and indicated in slightly slurred mime that he had one in his dinghy.....which was also behind the locked gate.

No problem. He climbed around and wobbled down to his dinghy, sat down in it and promptly rolled smoothly back into the water. I climbed around the gate as well but he managed to haul himself out and started stripping off his dripping clothes.

We headed out at the same time as him and he kindly offered to tow us. An offer which we thought it prudent to politely decline in the circumstances, but he was still sober enough to guide us through the shallow passage between the mudflats safely back to Sula.

The Double Feature – with intermission

We've been avoiding overnight passages quite successfully this season.  While they are quite enjoyable sometimes, with the occasional treats of phosphoresence, spectacular starry skies and meteorites, the novelty does wear off.  The one and two nighters are generally too short to settle into a good sleep pattern and we now of course have the extra crew who loves it...  sleeps exceptionally well and is up early waiting to be entertained by us bleary eyed adults....  bless her.

So at the moment, we find ourselves 5 miles off the coast of Morocco in the Alboran Sea. It wasn't really part of the plan to be here.  At least not at 4 in the morning.  We had crossed  to North Africa from Gibraltar a few days ago with the plan to avoid the bulk of the Costa Del Sol and to have a brief change of culture before we stop for a few months near Almeria.

All was going well.  We stopped in Smir, which in spite of the amusingly off-hand Moroccan girls in the harbour office who made sure not to let the distraction of paying customers get in the way of their texting, was clean and safe and tranquil.  The harbour area wasn't all that interesting for us apart from its setting at the foot of the beautiful Rif Mountains, but Beatrice was delighted to spend almost all our time there hanging around the Customs post, chatting with the officials and playing with Echo, their Alsatian puppy and trying unsuccessfully to stroke any of the numerous daggy stray cats.

We visited the city of Tetuan and were surprised by how relaxed it all felt and also by the fact that we appeared to be the only foreigners in the whole place.  So, encouraged by this pleasant and relaxed start we decided to press on to El Jebha.  We'd been assured by the police in Smir that it would all be fine but on arrival just before dusk we found the harbour stacked with fishing boats and the locals, including at least one armed official making it pretty clear that we weren't welcome.

In a mixture of sign language and broken Spanish, they seemed to suggest that we could anchor around the corner in a little cove, but the weather wasn't really right for the anchorage so we took a deep breath, switched on lights and pressed on.

Now, cruising along the North African coast at night does carry some concerns.  The Rif mountains are the centre of Morocco's kif (marijuana) growing industry and a significant proportion of it seems  to be shuttled across to Europe by boat.  This, combined with the migrant smuggling trade combine to make this piece of  water somewhat busier by night than we would have wished and was making the crew a little jumpy.

As usual, I took the first watch. So from 9pm through 'til midnight I sat out in the warm darkness. I didn't see many lights and whether this is because there were no boats or just that they weren't lit I guess we'll never know.  Anyway, I plugged the hard drive into the navigation computer, cranked up “Bladerunner- The Director's Cut” and settled in.

Come midnight, after a few interruptions, I was still watching.  We had hit an eddy in the normal East-going current that runs perpetually from the Atlantic into the Med, so our speed was down to below 4 knots.  When I finally called the relief watch for our switch over at 12.30 I sensed a certain grumpiness at the lack of progress, but I wasn't going to let that stop me crashing out.... until 1.30 when I was shaken awake to look at the boat (lights) that had apparently circled around behind us and was now shadowing us, matching our speed.  There was a slightly nervous half hour while we watched and waited, and wondered exactly what action to take if things went downhill.  Happily of course it turned out to be just a fishing boat doing the apparently random stuff that fishing boats often seem to do.

So, it's now 4am and I'm up again with another 3 hours 'til dawn.  It's looking like it's going to be a two film night.

Leixoes Revisited

Porto - statues in the park

The Atlantic coast of Portugal isn't the easiest of places to sail. While the wind usually blows in the right direction for those going south, most of the potential stopping points have shallow entrances and can be bit dicey when there is any swell. Because this coast has hardly any continental shelf, ocean swells reach the shore more easily than elsewhere. It's not for nothing that the place is a surfing hot-spot... hence most of the harbours are often out of reach for us.

One of the few that are relatively unaffected by swell is Leixoes.. pronounced Leshoins (or something similar). This is the main port for the city of Porto, some 5 miles up the adjacent river Douro and is one long day sail from Baiona in Spain.

Porto 

Porto - Train Station

We stopped here 9 years ago in one of those unfortunate conjugation of circumstances that left us swearing never to return. The weather had been a little strange then, with light following winds and a big swell. Not enough wind to sail, but just enough to hold our engine fumes in a cloud around us. In addition, the engine cooling system had developed a leak and on arriving we discovered it had been steadily filling the bilges with seawater. This left us feeling a tad grumpy as we anchored in the harbour outside the marina. We then discovered that they were in the process of dredging the harbour so there was a perpetual movement of the dredger around us, night and day. To make matters just a shade worse, when we visited the marina to enquire about engine parts, we found the staff there shifty, oily and as unhelpful as they could manage. We were so disgruntled that unusually for us we put to sea the following day into a near gale just to put distance between us and the place.

Porto - Central Market

So, as you can imagine we had mixed feelings about returning, but Leixoes is a convenient stopping point and we still hadn't seen Porto together. I had visited some 20 years previously but had no clear recollection of the city.

Inevitably, it could only have been better than last time. The port isn't the prettiest of places, but we anchored in the gathering dusk alongside a couple of other yachts, with our engine working fine and no sign of dredgers anywhere. We caught the bus to Porto the following morning, and on the way were greeted by the marina staff who were helpful and friendly, even though we weren't actually staying in the marina. Everyone seemed to be cheerful.

The city of Porto itself is extraordinary. It's scruffy in lots of places and generally quite run down, but has a spectacular setting in the steep river Douro valley and has a vibrancy and dynamism which is palpable together with a definite sense of style in spite of the decay. Clearly the last time that there was any significant wealth in the city was in the art deco period and so there are some fabulous examples scattered around.

The valley sides are riddled with steep and narrow flights of stairs intersected with shady alleys. Working our way down towards the river we realised we had bizarrely stumbled into an organised urban motocross race. Pairs of off road bikes were tearing up and down the flights of stairs in the heart of the historic city centre.

Making our way back to the station after and long and hugely enjoyable day meandering about soaking up the ambience (and two stroke fumes from the bikes), we found ourselves caught up in the middle of a substantial Portuguese Communist Party demonstration march. It was all pretty peaceful as it turned out, but quite noisy and lots of police.

We decided Porto deserved another day, so returned and had a more mellow time wandering about. Although there was a big marathon happening through the city and a book fair.

We headed out the following evening in settled weather for an overnighter to Peniche and had time during starry night watches to contemplate all the ways that leixoes/Porto had redeemed itself.

No, Seriously!

One of the occasional frustrations of long distance cruising occurs when you find that the exhaustive spares inventory you carry doesn't include that special piece of your boat that has decided to play up. So you either have to find the piece where you are or often get it sent from home. Hence we presently find ourselves trying to get hold of a small and relatively simple piece of gadgetry that senses the position of the rudder, and without which our usually trusty autopilot refuses to work.

I was startled to find that the first chandlery I went into in Spain actually had one in stock. This, it should be said, was after a fairly lengthy mime and garbled Spanitch session, as I'd left our resident translator back on board. The bad news was that they wanted over 300 Euros for it. Cue a hasty retreat and reference to Ebay, where we bought one for £70.

Ah, if only that were the end of the story.

The seller agreed to send it to Gijon marina, a little further along the coast in Asturias. Sadly he didn't think to include “Spain” on the end of the address so the next thing we discovered was when we looked at the tracking and found that it was already on a plane and winging its way to ….. Australia. Nice one Royal Mail!

Still, we managed to actually speak to someone in the Australian Postal Service a couple of days later who helpfully told us that it had been efficiently intercepted on arrival and been redirected....... to Austria...... no, seriously!

They later wrote and told us that this actually might or might not be the case, but they and we couldn't find out unless and until it surfaces on some other country's postal tracking system, either Spain, Austria or back to the UK.... or maybe someone in Melbourne has despaired and kicked it into a corner of the sorting office.

So if you see it, please drop us a line.

Mainly Spain

Golfe du Morbihan

Our brief time in Brittany came to a close at the end of July. We sat out some unsettled weather inside the Golfe du Morbihan where, despite there being a lot of boats, it didn't seem too crowded and the two main islands inside the gulf made for good exploring and walking.

When the weather settled we headed out on a sunny morning towards La Rochelle after being spat out of the entrance on a 9kn tide and having set our course down the coast, we changed our minds after a few hours and altered course for Bilbao about 250 miles due south. We had low moment when Ralph the autopilot started to play up, and toyed with the idea of going back to France (such is the horror of having to steer continuously) but decided against it and pressed on. Dropping off the continental shelf, which can sometimes throw up an uncomfortable sea, was painless and although not much sleep was had, the crossing was otherwise uneventful. The mountainous coast of Cantabria duly appeared, and then disappeared into looming thunder clouds. The wind did the usual random shifts and we ended up motoring the last few hours through intermittent lightning into the spectacularly industrial port of Bilbao.

These 2 or 3 night passages seem always to be the most taxing. They're not long enough to settle into a proper routine and the motion and noise is usually too different to allow sensible amounts of sleep. The additional factor this time is that Beatrice, who contrarily tends to get a full and sound night's sleep on passage, expects our full attention and willingness to entertain her all day. It is a concern that despite encouragement, she doesn't seem to want/be able to play on her own for any length of time and it's certainly one that we'll have to work on for the longer passages.

So at some point in the second day I had a serious mid passage sense-of-humour-failure. However, as ever, arrival at a new landfall does wonders for the spirit and we dropped anchor next to some Danes, sat out the rest of the showery day then headed into Bilbao.

The Guggenheim - Bilbao

One of the reasons for choosing Bilbao was the Guggenheim museum there and we walked around it with open mouths, fully satisfied that it was worth the trip. It truly is a wonderful piece of architecture/sculpture. We weren't that interested in seeing the contemporary art collection and so ultimately didn't go in but both later regretted not having seen how the inside of the extraordinary space was made to work. Hey ho, we'll just have to come back.

The weather decided not to co-operate and we ended up being stuck in Bilbao for a week or so. It did give us chance to take Beatrice to the doctor as she'd developed a worrying spottiness and in contrast to the ineffectual French doctor we'd previously seen, this one seemed to be actually competent. We also met Ronald and Annett (the first eastern German cruisers we've met) on their very sleek self built catamaran. Ronald is an electrical engineer and has the boat rigged so that he can control all the steering and motors via a remote control unit.

We finally escaped to Castro Urdiales, only 7 miles or so to the West and arrived just as the wind suddenly decided that it needed some exercise and from almost nothing started to blow a healthy 25kn (what you get for being on a hot mountainous coast). No sooner had we got the anchor down than small children in (and out of) kayaks started floating past, disappearing out of the harbour, being chased by one guy, himself in a kayak. Jan could have used it as an excellent case study in how not to run a kayak activity.... we threw the dinghy over the side, slung the outboard on and gathered up the children and wreckage.

Finally a bath - Gijon

Hopping along this coast that is new to us, we are coming to the conclusion that apart from the Guggenheim, the reason for coming here is the scenery rather than the towns, which are unexciting at best. The scenery by contrast is something special. Rugged cliffs, beautiful beaches and seriously large mountains as a backdrop; one or two still with pockets of snow.

Santander provided a safe stop to sit out a northwesterly blow. We headed upriver to find the most sheltered spot, rescuing our dinghy on the way after it decided to go airborne when the gusts reached 40kn, and anchored in the first of two potential spots. I was just headed out in the dinghy to have a look at the other one when I saw the Ryanair jet coming into land directly over it at what seemed to be just a shade above mast height. We decided on balance to stay where we were.


After a few more days of westerlies, we began to feel a bit frustrated and decided to do a long hop to Gijon. It was a slight disappointment to be passing possibly the most spectacular bit of coast on what turned out to be a murky day, but we made up for it by hiring a car from Gijon and doing a breathtaking grand tour of the Picos de Europa.